Twenty Months

I know it’s a day late, please forgive me, Sugar Nut!

Yesterday was a busy busy day and since we are at our new place, we still don’t have internet, so you’ll have to bear with me.

Yesterday was the day we met little Baby Andrew.

You were, of course, immediately enthralled.  It was a baby!  And since he was only 5 days old, it was easy for you to hold him.  You even gave him kisses.  As always, you were absolutely adorable.  I love how nice you are with babies!  Granted, that also means everyone always asks when you will have a little brother or sister.  We enjoy politely telling them we haven’t decided yet, but chances are, we will only have you as a daughter.  And we are okay with that.  I just hope you will be too.

You are, of course, still totally in love with your puppies.  More importantly, they are even more loving you.  Angel will let you play with her, and both of them LOVE playing fetch.  You’ve learned to pat on the bed or couch to have them jump up and sit on you.  It’s so great seeing how overwhelmingly excited you are when they do that.

You are continuously singing and dancing.  Even the smallest bits of music will get you to bob your head.  You’ve started singing even when there isn’t any music playing.  Babbling on with your own lyrics and a soundtrack that only you hear.  You only sing in a whisper, so anytime I hear that little whisper coming from where you are playing, and see you singing to your babies, my heart just goes pitter-patter.

The day before we moved, we had one last berry picking jaunt.  Your face is so priceless, as is you ability to imitate us.  I’m just continuously shocked at how adult you are becoming.

Your verbalization is changing, finally working out fuller explorations into (as Uncle Matt would say) “real person-hood”.  Your bath time has changed too.  You must actively be doing something, helping us pour water into a cup or putting it in our hands, something.  Anything to help.  The only way we can get you out of the bathtub is if we drain the water first, letting you scoop and pour until the last little bit drains.  Then, with a grin and a giggle, you’ll stand up, arms raised, ready to “shake shake baby”, be wrapped in a towel and ready for bed.

Every month, I write these letters and every month am just overwhelmed with how much more I love you.  My baby is not a baby any more.

With love, always and forever,

Mum

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes – Part Two

For Part One.

The graceful neck that is hiding under the baby rolls.  Slowly getting exposed as you grow into the young lady.  Those little rolls that are so nommable and squishy and wonderful.

Those adorable shoulders that look so cute with puffy tops, showcasing the pudgy little rubber band arms and wrists.  The dimples around the elbows and fingers that are slowly disappearing, again as you grow and change into a young lady.

I love feeling your fingers on me.  At night, you must be touching me in your sleep.  We usually start out curled around each other but as the night passes, both of us splay out and move around.  Anytime I wake up, you always are touching me somehow.  Your little fingers curled around my hair, the straps on my sports bra or my neck.  Those hands are so strong and inquisitive.  So curious.  They will reach up to a table that you can’t see on to feel what is there.  Dig into a bag or a pocket to find surprises.  Your fingers are long and slender like mine, but your nails are all your daddy’s.

That glorious little baby tummy.  So much fun to nibble and raspberry on.  You are so ticklish there are well, another thing I am thankful for.  If you weren’t ticklish like your daddy, I would definitely be sad.  Since you are, he has to spread his tickling time over two people and gives me a reprieve!

Your fluffy cloth diapered butt.  How I love using the cloth diapers, especially on your tender skin.  Thankfully you heal quickly, but I cannot imagine the rashes you would get if you weren’t in cloth.  It also allows great cushion when you were learning to walk and a handle to grab when you try to project yourself off of the bed.

Those strong legs, so ready to walk at so young.  Crawling is something you don’t do anymore, because that’s a baby thing.  You are a big girl now and would rather walk.  Including down the stairs, holding onto the railing that you can’t. quite. reach.  You will only slide down the stairs if we make you, otherwise we can get you down if we hold an arm and help keep your balance as you walk down the stairs.

And finally, your perfectly nommable feet and toes.  Defined ankles, arched feet, long toes.  You have your daddy’s toes and toenails as well.  Graceful and blunted at the same time.  I love the smell of baby feet even as I loathe the look and feel of adult feet.  You can’t get me to do foot rubs, but I’ll stick your feet in my mouth if I get the chance.

One of the most cute things I’ve seen you try lately is to pick up your feet while standing on them.  You reach down, grab the toes and pull….stopping only when your audience can’t hold back the laughter and it leaks out of our mouths.  You do it all the time when you find something to sit on (your carseat, a box of file folders, booster seat) and will just grab your legs to throw them up and don’t understand why it can’t be done while standing as well.

When it comes to sitting, you get into your “big girl” chairs in the most amusing way.  Occasionally you will back into them, but the most common way of approaching them is from the front.  You walk up to the seat, place a foot on and climb up onto it.  You then will do a twisty rotate thing that somehow gets you facing front, one leg curved underneath you, the other out front.   This is also how you get into our laps if we are sitting on the ground to read a book.

I love you, little Princess.  Happy 14 months of life and love.  It’s hard to believe that’s only how long we’ve known you…imagining life without you is impossible.

Happy Friday everyone!

A Letter to my Daughter on her First Birthday

Dearest Baby Soup,

Today you turn one.  It has been 365 wonderful days since you were brought into this world.  I know it is such a cliche to say you have changed my life, but it was true.  Worth every single day of throwing up during the pregnancy.  The pain of growing and changing body.  The 5.5 hours of labor.  In fact, if I could just go through labor again and not have to do the pregnancy, I would be happy.

But all of that falls away when I look at your beautiful face.  These past months your personality has just blossomed.

You must be the center of attention in any group.  Whether it’s just your Grandpa and Nana or in a big grocery store.  You will wave and smile at anyone if it means you’ll get a smile back.  If they don’t look at you, you will squeal and giggle in the hopes of getting attention.

A few days before Christmas you took your first steps.  Not long after that, you started cruising around.  And now?  Pretty much the only time you crawl is if you want to get somewhere really fast.  Most of the time if you are meandering around, you will walk with your hand grasping at your diaper and walk in a diagonal.  We’ve tried to capture it on camera, but you stop immediately and start posing.  I think it makes you look like a cowboy.  You will also choose to climb anything that gets in your way.

You have also figured out how to get off the bed by yourself.  You can almost catch yourself well too.

Your love of music has grown exponentially.  Your favorite songs are the ones with deep bass beats and fast lyrics.  Stuff you can really dance to.  You will bob your head to anything with a beat, but you have only bobbed your head in your sleep to the House theme song.

You got a baby doll for Christmas and are so in love with her.  You give her kisses and love to place in her in her cradle and rock it.  Sometimes other stuffed animals or dolls go into the cradle to be rocked, but they usually don’t last very long.  We don’t know where you got the spanking her from, but I prefer to think of it as burping the baby instead of spanking.  Either way, you hold her by her leg upside down and pat her back/butt area.

Your other favorite present from Christmas was your computer.  This computer even have your name on it!  And you know how unusual your name is, so having it on there is amazing.  It has great buttons and you love to push the violin button the most.  Uncle Matt and Daddy love it too, and are going to use that loop in one of their songs.

Your favorite person other than Mommy and Daddy is your Uncle Matt.  No matter what you are doing, if you hear his voice, you HAVE to see him.  He has to be completely silent while you are eating or you won’t eat anything at all.

As for food, you still loathe to touch anything with your hands and occasionally get into a mood where you do not want to eat ANYTHING except for boob juice, but otherwise want to eat whatever we are eating.  You will gnaw off someone’s arm for pepperoni stick and adore anything spicy.  You’d rather eat from daddy’s plate than mommy’s because of that.

When visiting Grandpa and Nana’s or Grammy’s, we make you sit in the high chair, which you’ll handle for a little bit.  You’ll play with your bowl and spoon, beating things around a bit, sometimes making it into your mouth.  Mostly you just bide your time, waiting for us to get deep into the throws of good food before deciding that you must have some.  But you don’t want to touch it, oh no.  Not at all.  So when rice gets thrown all over the place and lands on your arms and face?  The world absolutely stops until it gets off.

Just this past weekend, you fell in love.  We went to go meet a friend’s baby at his “Meet the Baby” Shower.  A little boy there, 2 years old, was very sweet to you.  He gave you grapes and cheese and oranges and you just wanted to be near him.  He didn’t quite know what to do when you tried to hug him but was very nice and kind to you.  You didn’t quite know what to do when he ran away to go get cake from his mommy though.

You bring so much joy into our lives.  You are so precious and so loved.  I cannot wait to see the lovely woman you become.

Love Always,

Your Mommy

Eight Month Letter

Dearest Baby Soup,

I’m so sorry I failed last month to write  a letter to you.  I don’t have an excuse, but I love you so much.

These past couple months have just flown by.  You have grown into a big girl so quickly.

You are now standing as often as you can.

This whole food thing is a hoot to see you tackle.  You have your favorite foods already.

Graham Crackers

Popsicles

You also adore bananas (as long as you don’t have to touch them), carrots, broccoli, beans, stew, soups and potatoes.  You will tackle someone for a pepperoni stick.  Your feet and whole body goes absolutely crazy when you hear popcorn popping in the microwave.  You’d shive someone for frozen yogurt.

You are SUCH a ham for the camera.

Showing off for it and other people as well.

You will do anything to get next to your puppies.  Now that you are mobile, they have to be mobile as well.

Thankfully, Darius doesn't mind.

You’ve started really interacting with toys.  At Grandpa and Nana’s and Grammy’s house, you know where the toys are.  You have your own phones, balls, stuffed toys and talking toys.

You love to hit things against each other and see what sounds they make.  You greatly enjoy dropping things on the floor to check if gravity still works.

Paper is the one thing that will hands down ALWAYS entertain you.

Well, that and Daddy getting you.

You have a tooth now as well, which we will never forget.  It causes you to have an incredibly runny nose which makes it hard for you to sleep.  You also love, now that it’s poking out, to chew on my nipple while eating.  You find it hilarious when I start from pain.

This is the face you give me when you bite down.

I love you, baby doll.  You make our days so much better.  I always rush home to see you break into a huge smile when you first see me, throwing yourself into my arms or crawling as fast as you can to get to me.  Thank you for being the fantastic baby you are.

I cannot wait for what the future brings.